Like a nervous boy asking out the prettiest girl in school to the disco, I enquired as to whether anyone would like to help set up a page of playlists to accompany each chapter of the book, and started the ball rolling with one of my own.

Never mind that whole “going to school” nonsense to get an education: all the (musical) schooling you would ever need would be contained in such a combination of book and playlists. What we sought to do here was no less than Make The World A Better Place.

Of course it turned out that someone cleverer and, let’s face it, quicker than me had already made a Spotify Playlist of the whole book. With two thousand nine hundred and sixty tracks it was quite an achievement. You can find the playlist here:

But for those who didn’t want to chonk through three thousand songs in one playlist, there was still a gap in the market. My idea was therefore to devote a page of Every Record Tells A Story to sixty-five different playlists of each chapter of Bob’s book. In the same way that each chapter of Yeah Yeah Yeah features a particular period of time, or genre, or band, so would each playlist.

Bob said (via Twitter) about the idea, “It’s a noble project: I’m intrigued to see what people come up with”….

It’s now October 2014 as I write this – and the playlists are complete. What you have before you is a complete set of playlists for every chapter of Yeah Yeah Yeah – except the Beatles one – but then you know about The Beatles, right?

Part One

1. Feet Up: The First British Hit Parade –

2. Flip, Flop and Fly: Bill Haley and Jump Blues

3. A Mess of Blues: Elvis Presley

4. Put Your Cat Clothes On: Sun Records and Rockabilly

5. Teenage Wildlife: Rock n Roll

6. Fifteen Miles From Middlesbrough: Skiffle

7. Rock With The Cavemen: British Rock n Roll

8. Whispering Bells: Doo Wop

9. 1960: It Will Stand

10. Walk With Me In Paradise Garden: Phil Spector and Joe Meek

11. The Trouble With Boys: The Brill Building and Girl Groups

Part Two:

12. Act Naturally: The Beatles

13. Needles and Pins: The Beat Boom

14. Who’s Driving Your Plane? The Rolling Stones

15. This Is My Prayer: The Birth of Soul

16. The Rake’s Progress: Bob Dylan

17. America Strikes Back: The Byrds and Folk Rock

18. Up The Ladder to the Roof: Tamla Motown

19. 1966: The London Look

20: Endless Summer: The Beach Boys

21. The Golden Road: San Francisco and Psychedelia

22. Pop Gets Sophisticated: Soft Rock

23. Crying In The Streets: Deep Soul

24. I Can’t Sing, I Aint Pretty and My Legs Are Thin: Hard Rock

25. Bubblegum Is The Naked Truth: The Monkees

Part Three

26. 1970: Everything’s Gone Grey

27. An English Pastoral: British Folk Rock

28. Freddie’s Dead: Electrified Soul

29. State of Independence: Jamaica

30. It Came From The Suburbs: Marc Bolan and David Bowie

31. Deluxe and Delightful: Glam

32. The Sound of Philadelphia: Soft Soul

33. Progressive Rock (and Simpler Pleasures)

34. Young Love: Weenyboppers and Boy Bands

35. See That Girl: Abba

36. Beyond The Blue Horizon: Country and Western

37. Before and After The Gold Rush: Laurel Canyon

38. 1975: Storm Warning

Part Four

39. Courage, Audacity and Revolt: The Sex Pistols

40. Cranked Up Really High: Punk Rock

41. Pleasantly Antagonistic: New Wave

42. Supernature: Disco

43. Islands In The Stream: The Bee Gees

44. Routine Is The Enemy of Music: Post-punk

45. Back to the Future: Two Tone and Mod

46. A Shark In Jet’s Clothing: America After Punk

47. This Is Tomorrow: Kraftwerk and Electropop

48. Adventures on The Wheels of Steel: Early Rap

49. Here Comes That Feeling: New Pop

50. American Rock (Ooh Yeah)

51. Just a King In Mirrors: Michael Jackson

52. Highs in the Mid Eighties: Prince and Madonna

53. Some Kind of Monster: Metal

54. Poised Over The Pause Button:The Smiths and The Birth of Indie

55. 1985: What The F- Is Going On?

56. We Were Never Being Boring: Pet Shop Boys and New Order

Part Five

57. Chicago and Detroit: House and Techno

58. Smiley Culture: Acid Culture and Manchester

59. 1991: Time For The Mu Mu

60: All Eyes on Me: Hip Hop

61. Bassline Changed My Life: Dance Music

62. This Is How You Disappear: Bristol, Shoegazing and a New Psychedelia

Thank you!
It’s early days, but I wanted to get the page up to give it some momentum.It’ll take a few days and weeks for people to contribute, but it only takes five minutes to do a chapter, so I’m hopeful.
Do you have one for me?